Real Estate Blogging

You've probably heard enough times that your top keywords in a domain name makes a big difference towards a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

It's certainly true.

In the field of real estate, there are two primary keywords that you can use:

• real estate


• homes

While many real estate professionals often look for something like, "phoenixrealestate" or "phoenix-real-estate", don't count out the word "homes". Statistics show that homebuyers are more likely to search Google using the "homes" keyword than the "real estate" keyword.

The reason why is because "homes" has more variants than "real estate".

For example, here is a list of actual phrases that were searched on Google for my hometown of Menifee, CA...

menifee real estate (average)
menifee ca real estate (low)

menifee homes (average)
homes in menifee (low)
menifee ca homes (low)
menifee homes for sale (low)
homes for sale in menifee (low)
homes for rent in menifee (low)
homes for sale in menifee ca (low)
homes in menifee ca (low)
homes in menifee california (low)
new homes in menifee (low)
new homes in menifee ca (low)
new homes menifee (low)
new homes menifee ca (low)

This information comes from Google's keyword frequency tool.

Notice that "real estate" has only two variants for Menifee, CA, but "homes" has thirteen variants.

What this means is that if you choose a domain name containing the words "menifee" and "homes", your pages are more likely to appear when someone runs a search for homes in your locality. Conversely, with the "menifee real estate" phrase, there are far fewer variants, and therefore, greater search competition.

As the list above shows, people don't all search for the same exact phrase. They use different words, including plural forms, passive forms. If you choose to optimize on the keyword with the most variants, your pages will have a greater chance of appearing on Google's search results pages.

You can increase that chance simply by publishing lots of pages. Each page you publish is like another chance that your site will appear on a search result.

It's not necessary that your site appear #1 on Google for the most hottest keyphrase, but that at least one of your pages appear on the first page of Google, for any variation of that keyphrase. The more variation available to that keyphrase, the greater the chance that one of your pages will show up.

Imagine if you work the Menifee, CA real estate market, and at least one of your pages appeared on the first page of Google, for ANY phrase that included the words "menifee homes"? That's domination!

It starts with a good domain name, and I think a good domain name for real estate professionals is one that uses the word "homes" plus the name of your area (menifee, tahoe, dallas, etc.).

Here are some examples...

• dallashomesonline.net


• oaklandhomeslive.com


• homesinclevelandohio.org


• menifee-homes-realty.com

I don't know if these domain names are available, I didn't check. But it's just to illustrate what I'm talking about.

While keyword volume is always a good consideraton, I contend that "keyword variation" is a better consideration. Look for keywords that carry lots of variation. You'll do better.